The etymology of Slav and slave is weirdly documented

08 May, 2024

I revisit this obsession every year to check if there's any change or newer documentation regarding their etymology

Fair warning: I'm not a linguist or researcher, just some obsessed dude.

I have some interest in Eastern Europe, especially before they became Orthodox Christians, and from time to time I like to look for the etymology research on the word "slav", as they usually document the first contact with the Slavic tribes. It is very common to see people stating that "the word slave came from slav because they were commonly sold as slaves, as both words come from sclavus in Latin" and so on. And, like, it's not true. Or at least I don't think it is.

I mean, yeah, some were sold as slaves, those were weird times, but the root of the word is the issue here. "Slave" did come from "sclavus", but apparently people rely too much on a few sources saying Slavs were prized slaves as proof of the connection. But it's a point of connection so finicky that it's hard to consider a proper reference, and it seems there aren't other sources supporting this theory, and many researchers actively contest it.

Consider now that there are earlier mentions of "Slovene" tribes between the Dnipro and the Urals, and later mentions of the "Sclaveni" tribes in what's currently the Balkans. Moreover, the word for "word" in many Slavic languages are derivatives of "slovo", which could well be the root for the word "Slav", which could mean something like "people who understand each other". This would make sense since every tribe to the west (usually meaning Germanic tribes) was called "nemets", meaning something like "people who can't speak" according to some interpretations, and up to this day Slavic languages are mutually intelligible up to a certain degree.

I believe this theory makes much more sense, because I sincerely doubt the Greeks or the Romans or the Byzantines would call a whole host of people "slaves", especially since they also did commerce with them (and also warred against them), especially since they were also using the different Slavic tribes' names (like Veneti, Antes, and Sclaveni) centuries before.

So yeah, I don't think "Slav/Slavic" has the same origin as "slave". The connection with "sclavus" seems to be made only in English as byway of the Middle-English word "esclave". This gets more frail if you consider that "Slav" and "slave" are a bit more different from each other in modern Romance languages, like eslavo/escravo in Portuguese, slave/esclave in French, eslavo/esclavo in Spanish, slavi/schiavo in Italian, which could indicate they have different origins, but it's hard to find (at least online) anything that doesn't automatically point to the "sclavus" connection with no questions asked.

The worst part is that only the Wikipedia page for the ethnonym Slav shows some varied references. Every other resource on the internet always points to the Etymonline website, which is maintained by a hobbyist, not an academic researcher¹.

There could be a point of connection in the Arab world with the word "saqaliba", which points back to the "Sclaveni", instead of "sclavus", but again, it would turn the name for entire groups of people into a common noun and spread it to Europe as meaning the same as "slave", bringing the same issue as before.

I'm still not convinced, but it's surprisingly hard to find references online because the sole association with "sclavus" is everywhere, even if based on limited resources. And since Slavs didn't have a writing system until they became Orthodox and adopted the Cyrillic alphabet in the 9th century, I'm pretty sure they didn't chronicle their own origin on paper, so we rely on the records from neighboring people.

If I were a researcher and had the time, I would look for records from Central Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Arab nations from before the 9th century, and then I would check variations in the way they call people living in the regions from current Slavic countries. Because, again, these people did commerce, and I very much doubt they would say "I'll travel north/east to buy some more slaves from the slaves".

#linguistics #random